


The Bear Killer

by VespidaeQueen



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 10:25:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2021481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VespidaeQueen/pseuds/VespidaeQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collections of stories surrounding the Ria of the Companions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A few years ago, I wrote a number of drabbles about Ria, making up a backstory of sorts for her, some of it stemming from conversations with friends and the rather out of the blue idea that Ria and Brynjolf new each other at one point. All originally published to Tumblr.

Once upon a time, Ria is small. She is tiny and unremarkable, a young girl easily overlooked among her siblings, the youngest of three daughters, with one brother younger and tinier than she. Nothing special, just the third daughter, the one to pretend to fight bears while her mother tries to teach her to sew.

Her father teaches her how to kill livestock. Her oldest sister teaches her how to make snares, and she catches a few rabbits out in the meadow.

But she is small then, easily overlooked, and when circumstances force them from their home, she is nearly swallowed by Cyrodiil. She runs from bandits and bears and heads to the north, where it is Skyrim’s turn to try to eat her, to freeze her, to make her small and as unremarkable as she ever was.

But, then, she is the third child, the youngest of three daughters, and don’t the great adventures always happen to the third born?

When she is no longer so small, she makes her way to Whiterun where the Companions dwell, and she shows them that she is no longer unremarkable.


	2. Bears

She’s never liked bears.

They’re big and frightening, and they lurk in the shadows of the forest, waiting to eat her.

Ria is fourteen when she crosses the border into Skyrim. Fourteen and without a home. She has the clothes on her back and a dull-edged knife tucked into her belt, and only a few gold pieces to her name. There’s a crudely drawn map in her pocket with  _Falkreath_  written in unsteady letters and circled several times. It’s the easiest place for her to get to, or so the innkeeper she had asked told her, and so that’s where she is going.

The mountain path is dangerous, and the chill of the wind bites. There trees provide only a little shelter, these big evergreens that stretch up to the sky.

It’s nearing dusk when she hears growling. She stops, heart beating within her chest, trying to determine where the sound is coming from.

She sees it only moment before it charges; a great mass of fur and teeth and claws. It’s massive and terrifying and she  _runs_.

Ria is fourteen and small and her knife barely has an edge to it, and she has never killed a bear before in her life.

Perhaps running from a bear isn’t the best idea - it gives chase. Snow sprays up around them as they run, and Ria skids and slips and falls, always rolling to her feet, never allowing herself to stop moving.

The bear is still behind her.

There is a tree - one of these evergreens, a few mostly bare branches near the bottom, then more covered in needles that spiral up around the trunk. She doesn’t know if bears can climb - all she knows is that it’s a possible escape, and so she’s going to take it.

She jumps to grab hold of the first branch and misses it. Tumbles into the snow, then tries again. She catches it this time and scrambles up - the branch bows just a bit under her weight, but she pulls herself up, sticky sap coating the palms of her hands. Grabs the next branch, and now there are enough for her to place her feet on. Tiny branches, nothing the like those of large trees that lose their leaves in the fall from her homeland, but they hold her.

The bear is beneath the tree now, and it stands up on it’s hind legs, paws against the tree trunk. For a horrible moment, Ria thinks that it will be able to climb up after her. But the bear is too large and the branches too small, and after some time it backs down and lumbers away.

Ria waits in the tree for a time, cold and shaking, and it is not until she is certain the bear is long gone that she descends.

Someday, she tells herself, she will be stronger and have a knife with an actual edge, and when she meets a bear she will  _kill_  it.


	3. Autumn in Riften

North of Riften, the trees do not change as the cold comes, clinging to their needles as frost spreads over the land. But in Riften, green leaves turn to vibrant reds and golds, like summer fires lingering, caught up within the trees.

Ria chops wood beneath the trees, hands chapped and calloused, each heavy blow of her axe straining the muscles of her arms. She is warm despite the chill that hangs in the air; the frost is not yet here, and the leaves still stubbornly cling to their branches until the wind picks them up and scatters them.

She splits wood to earn money, to flee the city and head north, to Whiterun. It is a dream still, nothing more, and when she has sold her wood in the market she will barely have enough money left over for her room at the inn and the food she will need to eat.

But she will slowly earn the money that she needs for the trip, and one day she will join the Companions.

There is a man in the market that day, selling potions, peddling his wares in a loud, jovial voice. An elixir for longevity, he says, and while the others try to maintain their skepticism, the man seems so sincere, so assured in what he sells that the others see it as well, pour coin into his hand despite their misgivings.

“And what about you, lass?” he asks her as she passes. He is tall, stubble clinging to his cheeks and his hair so much less vibrant in color than the leaves upon the trees.

She meets his eyes, looks at him over the wood she carries in her arms. “How much?” she asks him, for she has not heard the price.

“For a pretty lass like you? Ten gold.”

Ria laughs and shakes her head, because she cannot believe that there is anything within that bottle worth such a price. “Oh, I couldn’t.”

“Are you certain? How often do you find such a thing as this for this price?”

She presses her lips together and looks at him. There were men like this in Cyrodiil, in the city, who tried to take your money from you through honeyed words. “Ten gold could by a dream,” she tells him. A new set of boots, perhaps, or go towards the sword that she longs to hold in her hand. “I don’t think my dream is in that bottle.”

She passes by him then, for she has wood to sell and other jobs to do before she can even think of resting.


	4. Dreams

She’s always wanted to be a Companion, dreamed of it for as long as she can remember. To return to the grand mead hall after a battle, sit within Jorrvaskr with her shield brothers and sisters.

When they tell her that she is one of them, when Kodlak looks at her and nods, lips pulling into just a hint of a smile, Ria feels as though her heart will burst.

When Aela the Huntress welcomes her, this strong, proud, amazing warrior, Ria’s voice doesn’t shake at all as she thanks her.

That night she can barely sleep, excitement curled within her chest, thoughts fluttering about inside her mind. This is only the first step, she knows, and she will have to work just as hard to hold her place here.

But she knows that she can do it. And in the morning, when she trains for the first time with the Companions, no matter how many times she is knocked down she continues to get up again.


	5. Travels

It’s been one of the longer trips that Ria has been on since joining the Companions - well, not exactly a  _trip_ , but one of the longer journeys to get to the job and back. The job itself - cave bears,  _lots_  of cave bears - had been none to difficult, thanks to both Aela and Njada being there as well. Ria has taken on a cave bear alone before - it’s almost a rite of passage for anyone who has regularly traveled around Skyrim - but the number that they had been asked to clear out was not anywhere close to be a lone cave bear.

On the long trek back to Whiterun, still covered in blood and grit, the three women stop for the night in an old set of ruins, all tumbled stone and crawling weeds. They make camp quickly, sheltered from the cold wind by the old walls.

"I will keep watch," Aela says. "Both of you, get some sleep. We will start out for Whiterun as soon as the sun rises."

It’s Ria’s first job with Aela, and she furrows her eyebrows as Aela sets off to check the peremeter. “Is she going to keep watch  _all_ night?”

It is said mostly to herself, but Njada hears her.

"She doesn’t  _sleep_  on jobs.” Njada pokes at the fire, sitting crosslegged before it, her helmet resting against her thigh. “At least, not much. She’s always insisting on taking watch.”

"Huh." Ria glances to where the older woman has disappeared into the growing darkness. "That’s…strange."

Njada shrugs. “They all do it. The Circle, I mean. I was on a job with Skjor a couple of weeks before you joined - he kept us going well into the night, and then paced around the camp until dawn. But the two of them take a lot of jobs together, so I haven’t worked with them very much.”

"Oh." She’s still trying to figure out the Companions and where she fits among them, and the Circle is still something she does not fully understand. There is something off about them, but she cannot place her finger on it.

"You’re all very loud," Aela says, suddenly there again. Ria jumps just a bit, but Njada barely reacts. "There’s nothing about, for now."

"Says you." It’s said under her breath, but Aela hears it anyway, shooting a stern look at Njada.

"Get some sleep," she says again. "If there is any trouble, I will wake you."


	6. Chapter 6

"So this is where you’re living. Nice place you’ve got here, lass."

It’s been several years, but she still remembers his voice. Hard to forget it, really.

"Hello, Brynjolf," Ria says, turning, eyes searching the shadows for him. She was never thief material herself, never crafty or quiet enough, but he taught her how to look, how to pay attention to small things, hidden things.

"Hello, lass." His voice tells her he’s  _somewhere_  in front of her, but she can’t quite pinpoint his location. She sets her jaw, looks around, and - no, that’s not him She doubts this would be any easier if it were midday and the sun was out.

"Did you miss me, lass?" He’s moved, he’s right behind her - his voice is soft in her ear. She turns, tackles him; she might not be sneaky, but she’s strong and she can easily pin him to the ground.

"Oh, I missed you," she tells him, her weight resting on top of him. He’s smiling at her, the first smile of his she’s seen in years. "And you?"

"Aye. I did miss you." She gets off of him, offers him a hand up - he takes it, then pulls her close, presses his lips to her forehead like he used to, before. "I did miss you."


End file.
